Description

The small country town Skara Brae was enjoying a peaceful life, until an evil wizard known as Mangar the Dark appeared. Monsters have invaded the town, terrorizing its inhabitants. Mangar cast the spell of Eternal Winter on the surroundings, isolating Skara Brae from any possible help. Guards that were entrusted with the task of protecting the town have disappeared within one night. Only a party of brave adventurers can save Skara Brae and defeat Mangar.

The Bard's Tale is a fantasy role-playing game similar to Wizardry games, with first-person exploration of pseudo-3D maze-like environments, and turn-based combat against randomly appearing enemies. Unlike early Wizardry installments, the town can be explored physically, and parts of the overworld are accessible as well. Several dungeons must be explored before the player can tackle the final quest.

Six character classes are available when the player is prompted to create a party of six adventurers in the beginning of the game: Bard, Hunter, Monk, Paladin, Rogue, Warrior, Magician, and Conjurer. The last two can be promoted when specific conditions are met during gameplay. The bard class plays a special role, possessing magical songs that improves the party's performance in combat and are required to solve some of the game's puzzles.

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Buildings

While most of the buildings are empty and exist only to increase the size of the map, entering the building directly across from the guild shows the game credits.

Novels

Though any direct connection to the game series, setting and characters is slight at best, an officially-licensed Bard's Tale series of novels eight strong (!) were published by Baen Books over a six-year period in the '90s:

Castle of Deception (1992), by Mercedes Lackey and Josepha Sherman;

Fortress of Frost and Fire (1993), by Mercedes Lackey and Ru Emerson;

The Chaos Gate (1994), by Josepha Sherman;

Prison of Souls (1994), by Mercedes Lackey and Mark Shepherd;

Thunder of the Captains (1996), by Holly Lisle and Aaron Allston;

Wrath of the Princes (1997), by Holly Lisle and Aaron Allston;

Escape from Roksamur (1997), by Mark Shepherd; and

Curse of the Black Heron (1998), by Holly Lisle.

References

Michael Cranford, a devout Christian, put many Biblical references into the first two Bard's Tale games. Most notable are a reference to the crucifixion in the first game and the Holy Spirit in the second. In fact, Cranford ended his video game career with the second game in the series and now programs web sites for religious groups.

One of the more powerful shields in the game, the Ybarra shield, is in fact named after Joe Ybarra, a producer at Electronics Arts, who was directly involved with The Bard's Tale.

Skara Brae

The original Skara Brae is a well-preserved Neolithic village located in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. The four thousand year old settlement was buried by encroaching sand dunes and uncovered a century ago when a storm exposed parts of the structures. Today it is a well known tourist site and undoubtedly inspired Michael Cranford (Bard's Tale) and Richard Garriott (Ultima series).

NES version

In the NES version, the post-death screen was removed, the word "kill" was avoided and all alcoholic beverages were replaced with non-alcoholic ones.

Awards

Commodore Force

December 1993 (Issue 13) – #88 “Readers' Top 100”

Commodore Format

November 1994 (Issue 50) – #29 The All-Time Top 50 C64 Games

Computer Gaming World

March 1988 (Issue #45) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame

November 1996 (15th Anniversary issue) - #89 on the "150 Best Games of All Time" list